People's Democracy

EDITORIAL

UPA’s Raison D’etre Is Anti-Communalism

While the country is busy evaluating the balancesheet of the first year of the UPA government, one important aspect needs to be kept in mind. (Our assessment regarding this issue is being carried elsewhere in this issue.)

The fundamental foundation that led to the formation of the UPA post-2004 general elections was the overriding need to safeguard and strengthen the secular democratic character of modern India.  These foundations had come under severe attack during the six-year rule of the BJP-led NDA.  In fact, the raison d’etre  of the UPA is its commitment to safeguard and strengthen India’s secular democratic character.  To that extent, it must stand firmly opposed to communalism. 

The grievous assault on India’s secular democracy in recent years has come with the State-sponsored genocide in Gujarat.  Three years have gone by. Yet, the victims continue to languish and the culprits roam around scot-free.  By each day, there is increasing evidence of the involvement of the State administration;  right from the Godhra carnage to the subsequent ghastly riots that took place.  Every single constitutional authority in the country has indicted the Narendra Modi administration for its role in sponsoring the carnage and protecting the guilty. 

Apart the plethora of such evidence, new information keeps getting exposed every day.  The then Gujarat Governor, S S Bhandari, a senior RSS pracharak (who alongwith Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Atal Behari Vajpayee and L K Advani was sent by the then RSS chief, Golwalkar to assist Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in forming the Jana Sangh in 1951) has now publicly commented on the Modi administration’s culpability in patronising the communal carnage.  The then Gujarat’s Additional Director General of Police, R B Sreekumar,  has submitted his official diary detailing damning information concerning the role of the Modi government during the riots in Gujarat. This is now part of official evidence.  This serves as yet another damned indictment of the Modi administration. 

There is a petition pending before the Supreme Court seeking the investigation of six of the most ghastly cases of mass murder to be undertaken directly by the CBI. The central government must now act with urgency and see that these cases are immediately handed over to the CBI for expeditious investigation to punish the guilty.  Note must also be taken of the public comments made by the former president of India, K R Narayanan regarding his advice to the then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during the Gujarat carnage. 

Any celebrations of the UPA’s first year in office would be incomplete without squarely confronting the communal monster.  The people of the country expect the UPA government to both live up to its promises and to be true to the people’s verdict which rejected the communal forces in the 2004 general elections.